Michael Stipe wasn’t kidding when he told the New York Times Magazine in 2023 he was “in no rush” to release his long-awaited first solo album. Four years after its initially teased premiere date, the former R.E.M. singer-songwriter has finally revealed when it’s coming in an interview with the LA Times: the first single arrives New Year’s Eve of this year, with the as-yet-untitled LP debuting in May 2027. Also, per Stipe, “five seconds into the new year, there will be a new song with a video setting up the album.” In April, Stipe debuted a song from the project called “The Rest of Ever” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
Stipe is working with resident rock-icon whisperer Andrew Watt on the album, along with Andy LeMaster and “a gallery of thieves,” he told the Times. “Andy and I are in the studio for three days mixing some of the songs that he and I have worked on together,” he said. “I think the rest of it should be a little bit of a surprise.” Stipe added some vague details about the album’s politics (or lack thereof) as well. “I was talking to someone about the record over dinner—they haven’t heard a single note of it…and they said, ‘It’s political?’ I said, ‘No, not at all,’” he recalled. “Then I said, ‘In fact, just by dint of it being me and my place in pop culture and my reputation as an activist and the kind of songs that I wrote in the past with my former band, it is deeply, deeply political.’ But it’s not topical. Music is such a powerful medium, and I’m responding to instinct over anything else right now in terms of what I feel like I need from music and what I feel like I can offer.”
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